Sean Lowry

Some experiences of art are not necessarily connected to a single image, object, time, or location. Indeed, certain works of art are presented as a complex aggregate of very different forms, locations, versions, and modes of delivery. In such cases, it might be limiting to expect a single object or point of entry to be adequately commensurate with the “world” of a work. This diverse selection of contributions from artists, curators, and theorists explores new and emerging conceptions of art understood and experienced in relation to multiple and intersecting locations and temporalities, interminable reproducibility, radical indeterminacy, and the collapse of physical space. It considers new ways of thinking about aesthetics, historical malleability, and the distributive relationships that collectively sustain but do not delimit nor define contemporary art. Emphasizing dynamic relationships between material forms and social contexts set against sometimes radically materially and spatially expanded conceptions of what might constitute a work of art, this book presents a range of ways in which art can simultaneously inhabit very different forms of transmission, spaces of relation, and modes of mediation.

At its core, this book seeks to broadly repurpose the still contested historical question “what is art?” via a marked shift in co-ordinates. Comprising a diverse selection of approaches and modalities, its fundamental thesis will suggest that contemporary art is increasingly characterized by the significance of where and when it is situated. In short, it will suggest that where much advanced artistic speculation of the twentieth century was aligned with the provocation “what is art?,” the key question for many artists and thinkers in the twenty-first century is instead “where is art?”

Given that many of the works and ideas discussed in this book inhabit very different forms, places, and modes of transmission while drawing upon diverse disciplinary backgrounds, knowledge systems, and ontologies, we see our editorial approach as extending upon the central theoretical tenets of the book by deliberately presenting a dynamic selection of different ways of writing about locational specificity and art. Accordingly, we seek to emphasize the contested and protean nature of artistic knowledges, communities, stories, and representations through a range of original perspectives on expanded and intermedial material thinking, exclusion, censorship, race, gender, place, and the political nature of exhibition environments.

Much of the art explored in this book is characterized by a radical indeterminacy that is both difficult to capture and potentially significant as a site of cultural production. While it might be political, the kind of activism that art offers is not conventional—nor should it be lest it become what Theodor Adorno declared both bad art and bad politics.  Importantly, art is a speculative and discursive realm with a distinctive capacity to engage social, political, aesthetic, and philosophical problems while resisting conclusiveness. It can also offer an antidote to divisive certainty by presenting something of how others see and experience the world. With this in mind, we are deeply thankful to all the extraordinary contributors that collectively made this book possible by presenting a range of very different responses to this “where is art?” conundrum.

The challenges facing artist academics wishing to produce, validate and disseminate art and artistic research outside traditional exhibition environments are varied and complex. This paper is examines key challenges facing artist academics working outside traditional exhibition environments such as museums and galleries.. Established in 2012, Project Anywhere was conceived as one possible solution to meeting these challenges. Project Anywhere is an expanded exhibition model potentially encompassing the entire globe in which the role of curator is replaced with the type of peer review model typically endorsed by a refereed journal. Specifically emphasizing artistic activity and research undertaken outside museums and galleries, Project Anywhere is dedicated to the evaluation and dissemination of art at the outermost limits of location-specificity through the use of a blind peer review process for assessing the quality of artistic research outcomes.

This paper examines the operation and limitations of Project Anywhere’s double blind peer evaluation model. Referencing internal documents populated by Project Anywhere’s peer reviewers, all of which are artist academics of international standing invited to evaluate proposals to an annual global exhibition program, this paper discusses the challenge of meaningfully identifying and qualifying the potential for new knowledge production in discursive artistic research in a manner relatively commensurate with the expectations of clarity and relevance demanded of traditional research.

Challenging conventional epistemological assumptions, the last two decades have seen a more concerted push to recognise research that involves artistic production as a legitimate paradigm alongside quantitative and qualitative approaches. Moreover, with the broader integration of arts schools within universities, artist academics are increasingly expected to review their creative work in academic terms. Although there is some limited institutional acknowledgement that art may “speak for itself” in certain ways, and that new knowledge is produced through the materiality of the work itself, there is a larger general consensus that the production of creative objects or processes as a research endeavour should be accompanied by some form of written exegetical or theoretically contextualizing scholarly text. Meanwhile, it is important to remain mindful that a key feature of research in which artistic practice is the significant medium is the value of ideas that are given form through processes of making and doing.

Given that artists have now been affiliated with universities for several decades, this paper finds that the challenge of institutionally validating research undertaken by artists remains frustratingly unresolved. Meanwhile, this state of unresolvedness is being further problematized by the endless expansion of art and research outside of traditional exhibition venues such as museums and galleries. This paper finds that although there is clearly a lack of consensus around key terminologies, and much debate around what this type of research finally entails, there is broader agreement around base definitions. Although research undertaken by artists is, in most respects, comparable with any definition of research, a key element that remains unresolved is the transferability of understandings reached as a result of the research process. Consequently, this paper finds that the status of knowledge production in the creative arts remains a problematic issue for many reasons. Perhaps most significantly, the inherent discursiveness of the creative arts dictates that the practice of meaningfully translating knowledge production emanating from creative processes into formats commensurate with the journal based paradigm remains a mixed enterprise.

Welcome to Anywhere v.1 a biennial exploration of art at the outermost limits of specificity. We see this publication as a vehicle for giving voice to art located elsewhere in space and time. In the interests of deferring categorization, we have organized all contributions alphabetically. Editing has been kept to a minimum. This is part of our global community of peers and our affections are embedded in these pages. In part, this publication emerged from the 2014 conference Art and Research at the Outermost Limits of Location-Specificity at Parsons School of Design. Together with invited presentations, this event also featured projects that had navigated blind peer evaluation to feature in Project Anywhere’s global exhibition program. Together with the challenge of exhibiting art outside traditional circuits, this event touched upon the value of sharing and bearing witness. We had expected to simply bring scholarship to art. Instead we found ourselves sharing experiences through the medium of community. The omnivorous disciplinary appetite of much of the art presented reminds us of the challenge of finding appropriate language and evaluative criteria for projects that straddle art and other realms of knowledge. Although far from novel to note that art is now experienced in spaces, places and times beyond the limits of traditional exhibition circuits, given that much of this activity is concerned with events, actions or processes rather than discrete objects, supplementary texts play an important role in helping artistic projects such as this exceed arbitrariness in the noise of our present.

Apprehending art elsewhere in space and time can require work. At the very least it requires some kind of perceptual vehicle to make it accessible beyond direct sense experience. Dynamic exhibition formats and multiple destinations should not present a barrier to value. We believe that art should be valued as a valid as an independent form of knowledge without being subservient to externally imposed criteria. It should not simply serve or illustrate other fields. We celebrate art’s ability to traverse diverse forms, spaces and places and to evoke insights potentially elusive in theoretical, scientific or philosophical propositions alone. Yet such points of difference can quickly dissolve wherever art lends itself to didacticism, forgets that it can be political, or simply indulges without reflecting upon its surroundings. Art’s discursive and omnivorous nature can also mean that the challenge of translating knowledge that emanates from art into recognizable formats under stable conditions for critical reflection is bound to be a mixed enterprise. Art is a culturally constructed and therefore fictional activity that enables us to reflect upon other fictions. These qualities are not easily put into words. Although a vestige of provisional belief is necessary to maintain these slippery delusions, artists characteristically maintain a deep ambivalence towards certainty. At best, ideas experienced through the lens of art can offer insights beyond theoretical propositions alone. Yet these insights can quickly escape as we attempt to pin them down. Supplementary texts cannot wholly explain or account for works of art. Something is always lost (and potentially) gained in translation. We hope that you enjoy Anywhere as much as we enjoyed working with the artists featured in these pages. Onward…as if…

Sean Lowry and Simone Douglas

Douglas, S and Lowry, S (Eds.). Anywhere iii, Centre of Visual Art, University of Melbourne; Project Anywhere; and Parsons Fine Arts, School of Art, Media and Technology, Parsons The New School for Design. Design by Ella Egidy, 2019. ISBN: 978-0-6487354-0-3.

Publication produced in conjunction with international conference event organised by Sean Lowry and Simone Douglas, November 13 -14, The Lang Center, School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design, a division of The New School, New York NY, USA. Published by Project Anywhere, Parsons The New School for Design and mThe University of Newcastle, November 2014, ISBN 978-0-692-32297-0.